Les contours psychosociaux de l’infanticide en Afrique noire: le cas du Sénégal

Objective: Following the example of Senegal, this study had two main objectives. First: Ring the alarm bell about the large number of infanticides in a country where people usually consider a child as a treasure. Second: Highlight the deep motivations which may induce an African woman to kill her child.Method: The author examined psychiatric experts reports about crimes and varied offenses acquired from Fann University Hospital in Dakar during a 27 year period, from January 1968 to December 1994.Results: For a total number of 164 reports, 33 or 20% concerned infanticides. This underlines the importance of the phenomenon. Mental pathology appeared in two cases (3%) but 97% were supposed to be mentally healthy.Conclusion: These results suggest that social and cultural reasons more than medical ones explain the occurrence of infanticides. It seems that it is under the pressure of social and cultural motivations that women and especially young mothers, depreciate becoming a mother.